Tough men don't share sex videos - weak ones do

By Mary Konstantopoulos

March 6, 2019 — 4.00pm

As a Parramatta Eels tragic, by March each year I find myself eagerly awaiting the start of a new rugby league season. The previous season’s disappointment has been forgotten and I’ve deluded myself into believing my team can win the Premiership.

This year, as founder of Ladies Who League, I eagerly await footy’s return, but for a different reason; I hope that with its commencement we can turn our attention to the game rather than the happenings of the most distressing, damaging and scandalous off-season our code has ever faced.

Stood down: Panthers playmaker Tyrone May handed himself in to police.Credit:NRL Photos

Allegations of rape and assault. Sex tapes. Salary cap breaches. This off-season has had it all.

The latest scandal has seen Penrith Panthers player Tyrone May arrested and charged with recording intimate images without consent and disseminating images without consent. May denies the charges and the NRL has stood him down on "no fault" basis, so as not to prejudice his case. There are claims that someone else may have disseminated those videos of May with two women. May's guilt or innocence will be a matter for the courts.

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The NRL, however, has a broader problem. Panthers boss Phil Gould warns that distribution of explicit videos among NRL players is "extremely widespread".

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The May sex tapes were circulated on social media. I have seen them. As a feminist and a footy fan, they make me devastatingly sad. The degrading behaviour towards women in those tapes is shocking.

Please don’t paint me as prudish. If people engage in consensual sexual behaviour, film it, and everyone on camera is aware they are being filmed, then this, on the face it, is not problematic. But this is where it should stop; it should remain between the people engaging in the behaviour.

We need to ask why players are sharing these videos with other players in group chats? Responses of "boys will be boys" are no excuse.

Who could mistake their behaviour as heroic? Is it rewarded with high-fives among their mates? It’s deeply distressing if it commands respect.

Do players feel they need to behave like this to be accepted? Will they go so far as to jeopardise their careers for a cheap laugh?

Drawing the line: Todd Greenberg has now stood down three players in a matter of days amid a spate of off-field incidents hitting the courts.Credit:AAP

Some of the videos are exceptionally unsettling. In one, several men are seen stepping on a woman’s head. In another, the woman is called a "ratbag". Another is called a "slut".

Some players seem to get off humiliating and degrading women. If women are willing participants, I wonder why they have been raised in a world where they allow men to treat them this way – essentially dehumanising them in the bedroom.

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This is not only a footy problem; it’s part of a much broader conversation we’re having in Australia about feminism, toxic masculinity and consent.

Rugby league can help change the conversation but the game needs us, as fans, to stick by it, particularly those of us who demand better from the players who represent our clubs and communities.

Sport has a capacity to bring people together in a way that almost nothing else can. It has a powerful role in promoting messages about tolerance, inclusion and diversity.

The NRL has spoken with a confident voice in the past week. We’ve seen NRL chief executive Todd Greenberg and Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter Beattie announce that players facing serious indictable offences will be stood down on full pay while they are before the courts, without any presumption of guilt.

We’ve seen Jack de Belin, Dylan Walker and now Tyrone May stood down on that basis, sending a clear message to other players.

I hope the message gets through. Because it’s about much more than their careers; it’s about teaching them that while rugby league may be painted as a game for "tough men", tough men are able to have respectful relationships and treat those around them with dignity and respect. Weak men do otherwise. Tough men will be genuine role models to the fans, men and women, who hold them in high regard.